EU

Facebook’s users dropped in Europe and US Recently Facebook published latest (Q3) user and revenue update, having the overall users base drop (in Europe and US, mainly). While the drop of users, when compared to total numbers, is small, it is strong signal that users in Europe are not happy with some of Facebook’s practices. […]

On October 12, 2016 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that although the initial acquirer of copy of a computer program can make their own back-up copy of the software, he may not resell the back up copy of that program in case the original copy has been damaged, destroyed or lost without the authorisation of […]

Article 29 Working Party (Working Party) has published a summary of the discussions that took place at its Fablab workshop entitled “GDPR/from concepts to operational toolbox, DIY”. Workshop gathered more than 90 participants. Among them were 40 representatives from data protection authorities. Aim of Fablab was to discuss with representatives of industry, civil society, academics and […]

On September 9, 2016, the operator of the world’s largest Internet hub, De-Cix, filed lawsuit against the German government to stop mass surveillance by the German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). De-CIX is challenging the legality of orders from the BND to implement monitoring of communications flowing through its Frankfurt Internet exchange point. De-CIX insists that […]

UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) has found that government has breached personal data security nearly 9,000 times in a year. Most of breaches – about 6,000 – are on HMRC. NAO found that 17 largest departments recorded 8,995 data breaches in years 2014-2015, but reported to the Information Commissioner (ICO) only 14 incidents. Although not […]

There is a new developments in a privacy case brought by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems against Facebook. Facebook has questioned the right of Schrems to bring a Europe-wide class action. Now, Austria’s Supreme Court referred the question to the European Court of Justice (CJEU). Read full story

Dutch police have seized two servers belonging to Switzerland-based VPN provider Perfect Privacy. The VPN provider claims that Dutch police haven’t informed or contacted them about the reason servers were seized and about seizure they were informed by their hosting provider. Despite the seizure of servers, Perfect Privacy promises that no user data was compromised. Full story